


darling you're so pretty it hurts

by elainebarrish



Category: Dead To Me (TV)
Genre: F/F, it might suck !, this is literally completely different, to like everything i've ever written actually !, yeah i know !
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:14:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24370393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elainebarrish/pseuds/elainebarrish
Summary: they decide to redecorate
Relationships: Judy Hale/Jen Harding
Comments: 22
Kudos: 176





	darling you're so pretty it hurts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [heyscully](https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyscully/gifts).



> THIS IS LITERALLY JUST THEM REDECORATING. I KNOW. I DON'T KNOW EITHER. ok shout out to kate bc the vase is hers and so is the mural. these ideas were freely stolen, but also freely given. love u.
> 
> uhhh so basically SOMEONE said that i did too much useless internal monologueing/pining bullshit and i was like ok. fine. im gonna write a fic where i don't do that. so this is literally like basically 100% dialogue and things happening. it's like NO internal. i wrote it all today. i don't know. it's completely different. or maybe it's not and i just can't tell.

She says “come home” so Judy does. She says it’s only an in between thing, like she wants to keep an eye on her, so she braces herself. She’s ready for it to be temporary. Ready for Jen to send her away again, but if this is all of the time she gets in this family then she’s going to make sure it’s well spent. But then she buys half of Jen’s house, and buys Charlie a car, and nothing horrible happens. Jen pays off her credit card debt, eventually, and Judy spends more time in the main house than ever, because Jen stresses that it’s her house, too, now. That this house that she once shared with Ted she now shares with her, in some kind of four member family platonic unit situation. They’re a family and they’re in love and they’re each other’s people. Judy has people, people she can come home from work to and not worry about them turning on her, people who might actually love her in a way that isn’t conditional.

“I’m thinking about redecorating,” Jen says, out of nowhere, while she sips wine at the kitchen counter and watches Judy stir something, even though it was her night to cook (she’d started with good intentions, but Judy had hovered, and that’d frazzled her, so she’s taken over when Jen’s mutters of “fuck” had gotten too vehement).

“Yeah? How come?”

“It’s just been a while,” Jen shrugs, all nonchalant and uncomfortable, because she knows Judy is gonna think this is a thing and it’s not a fucking thing. “I grabbed some catalogues from work, figured you could take a look, decide on some colour palettes.” She levels her with a look as soon as Judy turns to her, eyes big and verging on wet. “Don’t make it a fucking thing, Judy.”

“Noted,” she says, and then turns back to the stove, tries to hide the enormous grin on her face. “Do you hate warm colours as much as I think you might?” she says, instead of anything that she wants to say, instead of any of the things she’ll really mean.

“Oh God, it’s gonna be all warm fucking burnt orange, isn’t it?” Jen groans, but when Judy looks at her she’s smiling, holding her wine glass like it’ll hide it.

\----

“Thank you,” Judy says, later, when the boys have disappeared after dinner and there’s swatches spread across the table, plates piles in one corner, because she’s never learned when to leave things alone, because even though Jen freaks sometimes she can’t let a nice thing go unobserved.

“Just wait until I’m making you paint the entire fucking living room, thank me then,” Jen says, smiling, wearing her glasses because she got tired of her contact ages ago, because she’d gotten changed into her pyjamas before dinner was even ready.

“You strike me more as a hiring a guy to do it kind of person.”

“Why do that when I can get you and Charlie to do it? Think of it as bonding time.”

“I do love to bond,” she says, bright and smiling, ignoring Jen’s tone. “I’ve never really painted anywhere before, most of the time I’ve rented,” she shrugs. “Picking out colours and stuff is new.”

“It’s a ballsache, mostly,” Jen says, instead of saying that she likes that they’re gonna do this together, instead of cursing Steve for not letting her do it before, instead of asking childhood bedrooms, because she knows enough now to know that Judy didn’t have that kind of upbringing. 

“I’ll make it easier on you,” Judy promises, and Jen’s smile is soft.

“You always do,” and it’s something like a confession, something that she didn’t mean to say. “I’m drawing the line at three Buddha’s max, though.”

Judy laughs, delighted. “Three?! Are you going soft on me, Harding?”

“Don’t make me change my fucking mind.”

\-----

They go to IKEA, more for ideas than with the intention of buying anything, and the boys start to get excited, interested in actually having some kind of input in the rest of the house, not just their rooms like usual. Charlie wants them to get a new TV, a massive one he can hook his fancy gaming laptop up to, and Jen considers it. There’s a lot of TVs in the house, a lot of screens, and she thinks maybe making the living room into more of a den, somewhere the four of them all spend time, instead of them outside and the kids in their rooms, isn’t a bad idea. She could get rid of the TV in her room, make it somewhere she sleeps instead of somewhere she sits in the half dark, awake in the early hours with the TV on in the background for company, laptop on the bed next to her. Thinks about people talking about sleep hygiene and wants to slap Judy and then herself, because she’s pretty sure that’s her influence.

“Maybe we should leave the kitchen, I really like it in there,” Judy says, and Jen is briefly glad that she’s starting to see this as a “we” kind of thing, is swept up enough in the excitement of changing things that she’s not worried about overstepping.

“It’s more your space than mine,” she shrugs. “You’re the one that’s gotta fix my fucking sauce.”

“Yeah, what is it with you and sauce?” Judy laughs, distracted by some marble counters. “Oh, this is gorgeous. What about different cabinets?”

“Whatever you want, babe.” She watches Henry open every drawer in an example kitchen and sighs, knowing she’ll have to go along after him and close them all behind him, but she waits a moment to see if he’ll do it himself.

“Also what if we rearranged everything? Like it’s kind of a tall person’s kitchen.”

“Getting tired of having to ask Charlie to get things down for you?”

“A little bit,” and she scrunches her nose in a way that Jen thinks is fucking adorable, which she then also thinks is fucking gross.

“We’ll move the cabinets down. Or maybe we’ll get rid of the higher ones, go for some minimalist shelves, or something.” She’s still watching Henry, and they both smile when Charlie bumps the drawers closed, dares Henry to try and get into one of the cabinets instead, and Jen looks at Judy with something like contentment on her face, relaxed like she should never be in an IKEA on a Saturday.

“Isn’t, uh, kitchen remodelling like, expensive, though?” Judy asks, hand over her mouth, voice low, not wanting to bring up money in front of the kids or really in hearing range of anyone else, and Jen just shrugs. 

“I sold that house, you know, the one that was like crazy fucking people money? So we’re honestly good.”

“OhmyGod Jen! You didn’t tell me! Congratulations!” and Judy hugs her, tight and excited in the middle of an ugly fake kitchen, and Jen’s heart does something like a leap.

“I got the finalisation email like half an hour ago,” she says, easy, and then shimmies her shoulders a little. “We’ve got money, baby.” And her eyes are sparkling and they’re something like too close, Judy grinning so hard her face kind of hurts, but she can’t stop.

“We should get champagne on the way home! My treat,” she rubs Jen’s arm, and she looks so proud as she tangles her fingers with Jen’s. “I love that you’re good at your job.” 

“I love that about me too,” she says, and flips her hair stupidly, and Judy laughs again.

“Does that mean a gigantic TV is in Charlie’s future?”

“It might,” and she aims for haughty and lands somewhere closer to excited, to happy. 

At that point they have to go save Henry from where he’s gotten stuck, because Charlie’s laughing too hard to help him out, laughing so hard he can barely stand, and Jen tries to shoot him a scolding look but she’s biting down on her own laughter pretty hard, so she’s pretty sure it doesn’t work.

\----

“So we’ve got the movers coming to take the cabinets and the sofa and the beds and stuff that’s too big for us to move tomorrow, and then I was thinking we could start with painting the living room?”

“Where are you gonna sleep while you don’t have a bed?” Judy asks, and Jen kind of blinks, because somehow she’d just fucking forgotten to think about it.

“Oh shit,” she pauses. “Fuck fuck fuck, I’ve done this so many fucking times. How did I fucking fuck that up?”

Judy’s laughing, but it’s sympathetic. “Hey don’t worry about it, sleep in the guesthouse with me, you already know I don’t kick in my sleep or anything.”

“Would that be okay?” she asks, and it’s so stupid that Jen honestly wants to crawl into a hole and die. “Why are we even getting a new fucking bed for the fucking guest room?”

“Because you went a little crazy in Bed, Bath and Beyond.”

“I did, didn’t I?” and Judy nods, mock serious, Jen smiling, and it’s like a crisis averted, a breakdown that almost happened, Judy saving her at the last second.

“It’ll be fun, anyway, like a sleepover,” Judy says, and Jen snorts.

“You’ve clearly forgotten that I do kick in my sleep.”

“But I always forgive you,” she laughs. “You’re cute enough to get away with it.”

“You tryna say you’d never kick me out of bed?”

“Not even for eating crackers,” she says solemnly, and Jen laughs, easy and relaxed, easy like they always are, now that life is happening in a way that makes sense, because honestly? Not having a bed for less than a week is no body in the freezer, no dead husband, and if there’s one thing they’re learning, it’s to not sweat the small stuff. 

“Wanna watch me try and take the kitchen cabinets off of the walls?”

“You with a drill? Count me in!”

They do actually remember to empty the cabinets first, thankfully, and when the boys come to investigate the noise they find Jen stood on one of the counters with a drill in one hand, wine glass in the other, hair in a bun and pyjamas and glasses on.

“Mom are you operating heavy machinery while intoxicated?” Charlie asks, but he leans against the island with something that could be a smile with a little coaxing.

“Drills aren’t that heavy,” she says, and Judy laughs, shaking her head, taking the glass from her when she holds it out. “You wanna help? Someone should probably teach you how to do something.”

“You know you can just pay someone to do this for you, right?”

“Yes, but then however would you gain such important life experiences,” and she waves the drill around to illustrate, and he moves closer willingly enough.

“Actually, why aren’t we just paying people?” Judy asks, and Jen shrugs.

“Do you really want a bunch of dudes standing around and then overcharging us because they think we’re too pretty to know any better?”

“Fair point,” Judy concedes, sipping from Jen’s glass.

“Hey, get your fucking own,” she says, and then she’s distracted trying to get the door off of the cabinet, so Judy doesn’t bother. 

\-----

The movers come, and take a lot of the old stuff, so the living room and Jen’s room and the guest room are practically empty, and Jen surveys the damage with a nod. “I’ll tape up the edges so you guys can get started on painting.”

Judy starts covering up the floor and what furniture is left with old sheets, and she’s wearing dungarees like some kind of domestic dream, hair in a ponytail, and she’s letting Henry help, and Jen tries to concentrate on putting tape on the light switch like that’s more important. She pulls out the paint and however much she’d protested, however many times she said she was just going to watch the others, there’s four rollers, and she gets stuck in with the others.

“Oh hey, I was thinking this would be good as a feature wall,” Judy says, while she’s concentrating on getting right up to the tape.

“Yeah? What do you wanna feature?” Jen asks, with a stupid grin, and if Judy were anyone else she’d roll her eyes.

“I was thinking about maybe doing a mural?” Jen hasn’t even opened her mouth to reply when Judy steams ahead, expecting a no. “I know it sounds lame but I was just thinking it would be nice, but also don’t worry about it if you don’t want to, you’ve already let me choose so much.”

“No, no,” she smiles, a tiny thing. “I think it would be… nice,” and she wipes her nose with the back of her arm, like it’s nothing. “I think you should do what you want to do.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, of course,” she softens, like Judy makes her sometimes. “It’s your space too, Jude.”

“Thank you!” she practically squeals, and she throws herself at her in a hug, both of them still holding onto their paintbrushes, awkward as they try not to get paint on each other. “Hey Henry, you wanna help me?”

“It’s your one chance to draw on the wall, boop,” Jen says, and Henry nods enthusiastically.

\-----

“You hate it,” Judy says, hours later, first coat done on the walls in the living room and the guest room, the two of them stood amongst the dust sheets surveying Judy (and Henry’s) hard work.

“I don’t hate it. I just,” she sighs. “Henry can’t draw a fucking bird. He’s a kid. It looks like it was drawn by a fucking kid.”

“But we both tried so hard,” Judy says, and Jen sighs again.

“He’s not even gonna fucking like birds anymore in like two months.”

“Then we’ll redo it,” and she’s so bright and shiny that Jen shrugs, so optimistic and happy that she concedes, because somehow those things are more important, now, than her house being picture perfect.

“It’s too fucking late now, think about how upset he’d be if we painted over the visual representation of his dead fucking father.”

“Yeah we definitely shouldn’t do that,” she laughs, a little nervously, and Jen looks at it in silence for a bit longer, holding her glass close, brooding a little.

“Fuck it,” she sips her wine. “I like the pink more than I thought I would.”

“It’s not pink, it’s “Mistflower”,” Judy says, and Jen groans. “It’s pretty though, right?”

“I really didn’t think it was gonna work, but I should have known to trust the artist.”

“Thank you,” and she does a stupid little curtsy that Jen shouldn’t think is cute. They move outside, and flick the TV on, don’t really watch it.

“I don’t know whether to repaint the main bedroom or not. It would make sense to do it now, while there’s no furniture in there.”

Judy tilts her head to the side and hums. “It’s kind of impersonal in there, honestly. I noticed that it was your sheets that ended up over stuff in the guest room, are you planning to get new ones?”

“Yeah, I just figured it was time,” she shifts a little, something like a half shrug. “It all feels like a fresh start, I guess.”

“Well have you picked those out? Like if you want a coherent theme or colour palette.”

“No, I thought we’d go over the weekend, since we’ve got a few days before the furniture gets here anyway. I’m not sure I want it to still be so,” she pauses, frowns. “I guess impersonal is the word, yeah.”

“You need more knick-knacks,” Judy says, bright and knowledgeable. “I can offer you some crystals,” and she’s laughing before Jen even levels her with a look. “We can go look at stuff after we do the second coat tomorrow, if you want, and maybe if we start with the sheets you’ll know what you want on the walls.” And neither of them question how much input Jen is giving Judy on a room she shouldn’t be spending any time in, because both of them know that Judy will end up in there often enough that she’ll have a book on her bedside cabinet, because they’d bounced on the mattress together, had picked one they both liked, and they hadn’t thought too hard about it.

“Okay, go get ready for bed,” Judy says, smiling, when Jen yawns for the third time.

“Oh thank Christ,” and she stands, groaning as she stretches. “I’ll be back down in five. I can’t believe I let them take my fucking bed,” she mutters, but it’s more to herself than Judy, who smiles as she checks the lock on the back gate and then goes into her bathroom to complete her own bedtime routine.

\-----

“You know you could move into the main house,” Jen says, in the morning when her head’s pillowed on Judy’s shoulder, her arm wrapped around her waist. “Keep out here as your space, like as a studio or something.”

“Wow you really did sleep well, huh? I knew that snoring meant something.”

“Shut up I don’t fucking snore,” she raises up a little. “Do I?”

“I mean, just a little bit. It’s cute, though,” she adds quickly, when Jen looks like she’s about to go off, and she narrows her eyes but she settles back down. 

“You helped pick the bed, anyway.”

“Are you sure? I know how much you love your space.”

“If you piss me off I’ll just go scream in my car,” Jen says, and Judy laughs. “It doesn’t make sense for you to be out here, anyway, you’re not a guest.”

“That’s true,” Judy says carefully. “You know my crystals come with me, right?”

“Yeah, but love’s making me fucking crazy, or some shit.”

“What if I wanna paint the bedroom burnt orange?”

“So long as it’s not fucking pink, I’d had enough of that by the time I was fucking thirteen.”

“I think I can promise you no pink,” Judy laughs.

\-----

Jen’s filling holes in the kitchen walls with polyfilla, standing on the counter again while Judy makes lunch at the island, and Judy’s vaguely glad that this countertop hasn’t been stood on.

“You know this whole soft butch DIY thing is kind of a hot look on you,” Judy says, turning around to lean against the side, looking up at Jen. 

“Oh yeah?” she brandishes the filler gun around and puts her other hand on her popped hip, and Judy scrabbles for her phone.

“Stay like that,” she says, and gets a photo of Jen laughing, head thrown back, sunlight spilling through the windows behind her, gets another of her pulling a stupid face.

“Is it the sweatpants that are doing it for you?” she asks, going back to her task as Judy squints at Instagram.

“Yeah, you’ve found my weakness. I just love a woman in sweatpants, they just drive me crazy,” she posts it and Jen’s phone chimes in her pocket, and she groans as she checks it.

“You’re not supposed to put my fucking pyjamas on the internet,” she practically whines, and Judy shrugs. 

“Then don’t look cute in them, you know that’s the rule! I promised to only ever post pictures where you look cute, and I have continued to uphold that rule.”

“Lorna’s gonna comment and ask if I’m having a breakdown.”

“And I’m gonna delete it, because she doesn’t get to talk to you like that,” Jen smiles at her and she smiles in return, and then turns around to finish building the biggest sandwiches Jen’s ever seen outside of a restaurant, and she squeezes filler onto the wall and dreads the sanding phase.

\-----

They start painting the bedroom later that day, after a trip to look at sheets where they’d decided on some that were patterned but not obnoxiously so, floral but understated, and they end up with a soft buttery yellow for the walls, something like a much warmer magnolia.

“So why all of the cool tones, before? There was a lot of, like, duck egg and grey.”

“I kind of just went with what was the thing at the time,” she shrugs. “I still don’t fucking know why anyone let me pick a white fucking sofa. No one’s fucking sat on it because we were so worried about ruining it.”

“It just means someone’s gonna get a basically unused sofa,” Judy shrugs. “Just think about how happy someone’s gonna be with it.”

“Christ, Judy, you’re just so nice,” Jen laughs, and Judy blushes a little. “I used to just throw everything out, I didn’t even donate it.”

“We’re gonna have to go thrifting at some point, there’s a whole world of cool, weird stuff you’re missing out on,” she smiles, and looks excited, and that’s enough for Jen to nod, to agree to something she never would have a year ago. “Oh, also, talking about cool, weird stuff look at this vase I got from one of those stores we went to the other day,” and she disappears to grab it, leaving Jen to continue painting the wall, while wondering how she bought a vase without her noticing.

“Look!” she says, and Jen feels something happen on her face but attempts to settle on something like polite bewilderment. “It looks like that piece of seaglass Henry found on the beach, and that was such a good day, I just had to get it.”

“It’s kind of fucking ugly,” Jen says, blunt, and Judy’s face falls a little, but she stays positive, lets it wash over her.

“I mean yeah, but it just reminded me of how much fun we all had,” and Jen worries that she’s going to get upset, that her natural inability to act like an empathetic human being is going to make her sad, so she concentrates on something that’s positive and still true.

“Remember how Charlie put Henry up on his shoulders and carried him around for ages?”

“Yeah, and Henry wouldn’t stop talking about how cool everything looked from up there, like he was on a plane or something,” she grins. “Can we keep it?”

“Of course we can.”

\-----

Somehow they manage to only have one paint fight, and it’s a little one, and definitively Jen’s fault because she decided that having paint on her hand from when she tripped and caught herself on the wall obviously meant she had to smack a hand print onto the back pocket of Judy’s dungarees, and it’s her fault for laughing when she tripped over the dust sheet, anyway. They all leave the guest room with paint in their hair and it rolled onto their arms, but it’s the kind of laughing that makes Jen feel like they’ve really got a future together, the four of them.

“What do you think of this bathroom?” Jen asks, sudden, while she’s washing paint off of her forearms and Judy’s hanging in the doorway.

“I like it. It’s all modern and fancy. And your tub looks really comfortable.”

“You don’t think we need two sinks?”

“No, I’d rather fight you for space when we brush our teeth,” she laughs, and Jen rolls her eyes.

\-----

The furniture comes in, and it coincides almost perfectly with the painting being done. Jen makes Charlie close his eyes while her and Jen carry the boxed TV in, and she swears she’s never seen him as happy as when he opens his eyes and it registers.

“This is literally the exact fucking one I wanted!” he almost yells, and Jen rolls her eyes.

“Maybe we should get a fucking swear jar.”

“The only person who wouldn’t have to put money in it is Henry,” Judy points out.

“Not for long, I’ve been training him up,” Charlie says, ruffling his hair, and Henry’s eyes widen.

“I would never,” he says, dramatically, and Charlie laughs.

“Yeah we might still have to give him a couple of years.”

“I’m glad one of us is still suitable for polite society,” Jen waves at the box. “You wanna do the honours?”

Charlie jumps at it and Henry stays to help, and Jen and Judy go upstairs, to make the bed and move things into cabinets and start turning it into an actual space that belongs to the both of them. “Just gotta get the last of the stuff from the guest house, and we’re done in here,” Judy grins, and Jen looks around.

“Maybe a few crystals would help to spruce it up,” she says, sarcastic, and Judy shoves her lightly.

“You love it really,” Judy says, as Jen shoves her back.

“Only because it’s you,” and she laughs like it isn’t true even though they both know that it is.

“Come here,” Judy says, holding her arms out, and Jen walks into them easily, hugs her without thinking. “You wanna make out while the boys are distracted?”

Jen pretends to think about it. “You're so fucking lame,” she grins, kissing her even though she’s fighting a smile to do it.


End file.
